hey often went bad, and even when he managed to sell
them all the profit was so slight that it was not worth doing.

Before the work at 'The Cave' was finished, Philpot was a good friend
to them; he frequently gave old Jack sixpence or a shilling and often
brought a bag off cakes or buns for the children. Sometimes he came to
tea with them on Sundays as an excuse for bringing a tin of salmon.

Elsie and Charley frequently went to Owen's house to take tea with
Frankie; in fact, whilst Owen had anything to do, they almost lived
there, for both Owen and Nora, knowing that the Lindens had nothing to
live on except the earnings of the young woman, encouraged the children
to come often.

Old Jack made some hopeless attempts to get work--work of any kind, but
nobody wanted him; and to make things worse, his eyesight, which had
been failing for a long time, became very bad. Once he was given a job
by a big provision firm to carry an advertisement about the streets.
The man who had been carrying it before--an old soldier--had been
sacked the previous day for getting drunk while on duty. The
advertisement was not an ordinary pair of sandwich boards, but a sort
of box without any bottom or lid, a wooden frame, four sides covered
with canvas, an which were pasted printed bills advertising margarine.
Each side of this box or frame was rather larger than an ordinary
sandwich board.

Old Linden had to get inside this thing and carry it about the streets;
two straps fixed across the top of the frame and passing one over each
of his shoulders enabled him to carry it. It swayed about a good deal
as he walked along, especially when the wind caught it, but there were
two handles inside to hold it steady by. The pay was eighteenpence a
day, and he had to travel a certain route, up and down the busiest
streets.

At first the frame did not feel very heavy, but the weight seemed to
increase as the time went on, and the straps hurt his shoulders. He
felt very much ashamed, also, whenever he encountered any of his old
mates, some of whom laughed at him.

In consequence of the frame requiring so much attention to keep it
steady, and being unused to the work, and his sight so bad, he several
times narrowly escaped being run over. Another thing that added to his
embarrassment was the jeering of the other sandwichmen, the loafers
outside the public houses, and the boys, who shouted 'old Jack in the
box' after him. Sometimes the boys t